Small habitat matrix: How does it work?
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PERSPECTIVE
Small habitat matrix: How does it work? Casey Keat-Chuan Ng
, John Payne, Felicity Oram
Received: 23 March 2020 / Revised: 7 July 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020
Abstract We present herein our perspective of a novel Small Habitats Matrix (SHM) concept showing how small habitats on private lands are untapped but can be valuable for mitigating ecological degradation. Grounded by the realities in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, we model a discontinuous ‘‘stepping stones’’ linkage that includes both terrestrial and aquatic habitats to illustrate exactly how the SHM can be deployed. Taken together, the SHM is expected to optimize the meta-population vitality in monoculture landscapes for aerial, arboreal, terrestrial and aquatic wildlife communities. We also provide the tangible cost estimates and discuss how such a concept is both economically affordable and plausible to complement global conservation initiatives. By proposing a practical approach to conservation in the rapidly developing tropics, we present a perspective from ‘‘ground zero’’ that reaches out to fellow scientists, funders, activists and proenvironmental land owners who often ask, ‘‘What more can we do?’’ Keywords Biodiversity Funding Landscape ecology Protected area
INTRODUCTION A basic tenet of ecology suggests that in most cases animal species diversity increases concurrently with increase in area. Though this species–area relationship (SAR) is also dependent on other factors such as animal size, lifecycle needs and natural dispersal range (Rybicki and Hanski 2013), the central goal of conservation practice over the past 50 years has been to secure as large as possible contiguous blocks of intact landscape so as much biodiversity is preserved as possible (Cantu-Salazar and Gaston 2010).
The scientific consensus so far appears to be ‘‘larger is better’’. Additionally, the single large or several small (SLOSS) debate is still on-going since 1970s and the resolution has not emerged (Fahrig 2020). According to Baillie and Zhang (2018), estimates ranging from 25 to 75% of major ecosystems are required to be retained. A global target of 17% was proposed as an international policy in the CBD Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 (Leadley et al. 2014), although more recently, Dinerstein et al. (2019) proposed 30% as a more plausible threshold. Others have argued that anything below 50% (usually referred to as ‘‘half earth’’ or ‘‘nature needs half’’; NNH) would not be sufficient (Locke 2013; Wilson 2016; Dinerstein et al. 2017; Pimm et al. 2018). Given the especially high and on-going anthropogenic pressures in fast growing and developing country context, securing large intact landscapes seems now unlikely (Bu¨scher et al. 2016). Thus, under prevailing circumstances, we ask—how can smaller and disturbed landscapes contribute to maintain a reasonable level of biodiversity? Literature supporting maximizing the coverage of protected areas is abundant (e.g. Baillie and Zhang 2018; Pimm et al. 2018; Dinerstein et al. 2019). Investigating the values of smal
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